by Beverly Long
“Anything change since we talked?” he asked.
Royce shook his head.
Detective Mannis motioned them toward the elevator. “I connected with the manager on my way over, thought it might save us some time. Her office is on the sixth floor. She’s expecting us.”
Royce motioned for her to follow Detective Mannis and then he and Trey fell into step, one on each side. They were a walking triangle, with her in the middle. “She’s probably thinking we’re more trouble than we’re worth,” Royce said. “After all, this is the second time today that we’ve needed them to pull security tapes.”
“She did seem a little surprised,” Detective Mannis admitted. “But when I told her it was a possible abduction, I had her full attention. Not good for a hotel’s reputation, you know.”
No one answered.
When they got to the executive offices, there was a woman at a desk in the lobby. “Detective Mannis for Sonya Tribee,” the detective said, handing the woman his card.
“Of course,” she said. “Please follow me.”
Sonya Tribee had a corner office with two walls of windows. She wore a red suit, a silky white blouse and three-inch black heels. Her very blond hair was pulled back in a tight chignon and she had diamond studs in her ears.
Her desk was immaculate, with just an empty inbox and a computer on it.
She was maybe thirty, and as professional as she probably was, her mouth literally fell open with she looked at Trey and Royce. Her office was likely rarely filled with that much raw masculinity.
If either man noticed, they ignored it. Detective Mannis introduced himself, then JC, Royce and Trey in turn.
Royce motioned for Detective Mannis and her to take the two chairs in front of the manager’s desk, and he and Trey stood behind them.
“I’m very concerned with what you told me, Detective Mannis,” she said. “I was just on my way out for the day and I’m very glad you caught me.”
“We appreciate you staying,” Royce said, jumping in. “We’re looking for a young woman, age twenty-four, about five-three and maybe a hundred and five pounds. She was in the pool area today, in one of the cabanas near the tiki bar. Your bartender remembers her. He also thinks that she was approached by two men at some point and left the area.”
“And this was unexpected?” the manager asked.
“Yes,” JC said. “She’s...a friend and has been staying in my suite. I expected her to return from the pool.”
“I hope you know, Ms. Cambridge, that these things don’t happen at the Periwinkle. I’m just terribly sorry.”
“I have the highest regard for the Periwinkle,” JC said. She did not want the manager to cover up important information just because it might look bad for the Periwinkle.
Detective Mannis cleared his throat. “If we could just look at that video footage.”
Sonya motioned for them to come behind her desk. She clicked a few buttons and suddenly there was the pool area in all its opulent glory. “I want to see the cabana to the left of the tiki bar about five this afternoon,” Royce said.
She clicked a few buttons and the video was in a fast rewind. JC had to look away because the fast jerky movement made her sick to her stomach.
Or maybe it was the very horrible realization that something had happened to Charity and she was never going to get to know her only sister.
“There,” Royce said.
Sonya stopped the rewind and JC saw Charity lounging back in the chair. Her eyes were closed. There was a partially empty glass on the small table next to her.
JC wondered if she was sleeping, but within minutes, Charity stretched an arm out for the glass and finished her drink. And five minutes went by before the pool server stopped by to ask if she wanted a refill.
“This has to be it,” Royce said. “The bartender said that she ordered a drink but left before the server could deliver it.”
JC wanted to scream at the computer. Open your eyes. Be careful.
It was like waiting for the train wreck that you knew was coming. And sure enough, a minute or two later, two men, both wearing dark slacks and long-sleeved white shirts, entered the shot. They both had on straw hats, pulled low. “We’re going to need to know how they got in,” Detective Mannis said.
“We’ll have that,” Sonya said.
“Stay here,” Royce said, his attention laser-focused on the screen. “We’ll get that later.”
The two men squatted down next to Charity’s chair. She sat up fast, as if they’d startled her. She opened her mouth but closed it fast.
The angle was wrong. They couldn’t see the men’s mouths. Had one of them said something that made her suddenly decide not to scream, not to create a disturbance? The one on the right reached into his pants pocket. Royce thought maybe he was pulling a gun. But it wasn’t that. It was something flat and he extended his hand, letting Charity see it.
Charity stood. Leaned in the direction of her beach bag but then straightened up fast before reaching for the item. The men each took a side, with the man on the right grabbing her arm. They vanished from the shot.
Sonya pushed some buttons, probably going to another camera, and sure enough, there they were. Walking out the back gate.
“How far can you follow them?” Trey asked.
“Almost to the street,” Sonya said, clicking keys. JC wanted to close her eyes, to not watch, but she kept them wide-open. Saw the men hurry Charity down the sidewalk, saw them looking left, and then maybe thirty seconds later, a black late-model sedan drove up to the curb. One of the men got in the front passenger side, the other man and Charity piled into the back.
The car sped away.
The room was absolutely silent.
“Can you back that up and slow it down?” Royce asked. “Can we catch a plate number, maybe a view of the driver?”
Sonya gave it a try but the angles weren’t right.
“Don’t worry about it,” Detective Mannis said. “There are cameras all along the strip. We’ll be able to find them. Give me an exact time,” he said to Sonya.
She leaned forward, closer to the screen. “Five sixteen,” she said.
JC felt her face heat up. All this was starting to happen while she was sleeping in Royce’s arms.
She felt sick. But they couldn’t stop now. “Let’s go back to how those men got to her. Did they come through the back gate or through the hotel?”
Royce nodded, as if he’d been about to ask the same question.
It took Sonya just minutes to find it. A young couple, holding hands, left the pool area by the back gate. As they did so, the men had entered. In fact, the woman held the door open for them, smiling.
Oldest game in the book. Wait for somebody to open the door and come in. It was a security risk that most employers were constantly addressing. At Miatroth, where drug tampering in the manufacturing process was always a concern, associates were shown videos on how not to fall for the same scam.
Royce ran his hand across his head, ruffling up his short hair. “The two of them must have been waiting outside for some time. Can you back that video up? I want to take a better look at their faces.”
The men had waited for eleven minutes before somebody had left by the back gate. But it was almost as if they suspected that there were cameras. They kept their faces down.
Sonya shut off her computer. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at JC.
“Thank you,” JC said. Her throat felt tight. Charity could be in terrible danger.
They all shook hands with Sonya and left her office. Once they were back in the hallway leading to the lobby, she looked at Royce. “Do you think Bobby is behind this?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right,” he said. “Bobby would come himself, make a scene in the hotel. This look
ed...”
She waited. But Royce didn’t look as if he intended to finish the sentence.
“This looked pretty well orchestrated,” Trey said, finishing the thought. “They got in and out fast and it was less than a minute before that car pulled up.”
“I’m still not confident that she didn’t go willingly with those men,” Detective Mannis said.
They hadn’t been dragging her to the car. Yes, one had his hand cupped around her elbow, but maybe he was just being a gentleman, trying to make sure she didn’t trip on the uneven stones.
But if she’d gone willingly, why hadn’t she called? It was now almost seven o’clock. Certainly past the time when Charity should have returned from the pool. JC wanted to rail at the detective, to tell him how terribly wrong he was. But she knew that she was influenced by her deep desire that Charity be the kind of woman who did the right thing, hung out with the right kind of people.
Be a sister she could be proud of.
What could Charity possibly be involved in that would have two men—no, make that three, because somebody had to be driving that car—gang up and kidnap her?
“Now what?” she asked, because her head really was spinning.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” Royce said.
“I’ll contact you once I’ve gotten a chance to look at the street video. If I know anything more, I’ll share it,” Detective Mannis said. “We’ll also check Bobby Boyd’s apartment again. Just in case.”
“There is one thing you should be aware of,” Royce said. “Charity shared with Jules that she was out with a friend last night. They were drinking at a bar.”
The detective pulled out his little notebook. “Name?”
“Louisa Goodall.”
JC didn’t even blink. But her brain, already scattered, started smoldering.
She’d never mentioned Louisa’s last name. She hadn’t known it.
Trey looked at Royce. “What else can I do for you?”
“I’ve got this,” Royce said. “Get some sleep. But in case we need you later, take this extra room key.” He tossed it at Trey.
Trey caught it, then turned to smile at her. “Nice to meet you, JC. Difficult circumstances and all that, but still my pleasure.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Trey and Detective Mannis walked out of the lobby together. And Royce didn’t waste any time hustling her into the elevator. “You should eat something,” he said.
“You have to be hungry, too,” she said, feeling suddenly quarrelsome.
“I’m okay,” he said, his voice tentative. “Jules, you know that this isn’t your fault, right?”
She shook her head. “How do I know that?” she asked. “How do I know that this isn’t one hundred percent connected to me?”
She was practically yelling now, and within the tight confines of the elevator, her words seemed to bounce off the walls. The bell dinged, announcing their arrival at the fourteenth floor.
Royce held up a finger, then stepped in front of her. He motioned for her to follow. Once they were inside her suite, as usual he checked the rooms before allowing her to leave the entryway.
He’d no more finished doing that before she confronted him. “When I mentioned Lou, you acted as if you’d never heard of her. Yet you told Detective Mannis that Charity had a friend named Louisa Goodall. I never told you Lou’s last name. I didn’t know it.” She took a breath. “Royce, I want to know how you know that and what else there is that you’re hiding from me.”
Chapter 17
In all the time he’d known Jules, he didn’t think he’d ever seen her angry. But she was steaming right now.
She was so damn smart that he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d picked up on his slip, all without even missing a beat.
“Can we sit down?” he suggested, his tone even.
“No.”
Her back was rigid and her chin was slightly lifted, as if she was awaiting a physical blow.
“I did a background check on Charity. Louisa Goodall’s name came up a few times because they were roommates, apparently for a few years after high school.” He pulled his cell from his belt. Thumbed through the emails and found the one he needed. “Here’s a couple pictures of her. I’ve got some of Charity, too.”
Jules reached for the phone and stared at the pictures for several minutes. “What else did you find out about Charity?” she asked.
There was something in her tone, something that didn’t sound exactly right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was angry, sure, but there was something else. “What you’d told me. Raised by a single mom who died about eight months ago. High school graduate. No college. Entry-level retail job. Moved to Vegas a few months ago.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
Had she expected something more? “Yeah.”
“Fine. We need to find Louisa Goodall. They were drinking last night. We need to find the bar where they were drinking.”
“Jules, this is Vegas. That’s a whole lot of bars.”
“She said it was a ten-minute cab ride home. I think it was an Irish bar because she was drinking Guinness and said something about when in Rome, do what the Romans do. We need to figure out what Irish bars are a ten-minute cab ride at two in the morning.”
“You know, she might not have been keeping exact time. She’d been drinking,” he said. “Maybe her ten minutes was really seven or maybe even fourteen.”
“We have to start somewhere,” she said. “I’m not staying here. I’ll go crazy.”
“Have you forgotten that somebody is threatening you? That they have tried to harm you?”
“I’ll wear a disguise. Something that nobody will recognize me in.”
Royce debated his options. He was fairly confident that if he shut Jules down, she was determined enough that she’d attempt to sneak out of the hotel later. He’d be able to stop her but the whole thing might come off the rails. She’d been very compliant with her security precautions up to this point. He didn’t suddenly want her to rebel and make protecting her so much more difficult. “I suppose, if I wore one, too,” he said. “I’m not letting you go by yourself.”
“Fine. Whatever.” She picked up her smartphone. “Let me see if there are costume shops close—”
“No,” he interrupted her. “If we’re going to do this, we do it right.” He picked up his own cell phone.
“Hey, I know I told you to get some sleep,” he said, once his partner had answered, “but I need a favor first.”
Once he was confident his partner understood exactly what he wanted, he ended the conversation. “He’ll be here as soon as he can. And he’s getting us a different car.”
“Wow,” she said. “I guess you’ve done this before.”
Providing security was their main focus, but on occasion, that required some surveillance work, too. Changing up cars was common practice, especially if it was long-term. They also had an arsenal of high-quality disguises—hairpieces, mustaches, clothing and the like—that could be used to alter their appearance.
They didn’t have much for women, however, so Trey was going to need to get inventive.
Jules picked up her laptop. “I’m going to answer some emails,” she said.
He gave her credit. She had to be worried sick about Charity but she also knew that she had a responsibility to lead her organization and couldn’t just suddenly be AWOL. He liked the fact that she was able to do that. He had not discounted the fact that someone internal to her organization was behind the threats. If they saw evidence of her working, they would assume that everything was status quo.
They’d have no idea she was about to blend into the Vegas nightlife.
Twenty-four minutes later, Royce got a text from Trey. Coming up the back stairs.
He knocked on Jules’s bedroom door. He expected to see her sitting on the bed, where she’d worked before, but she’d chosen the chair, the same chair that he’d been sitting in.
Did the bed feel differently to her now that they’d made love there? He stared at her. Her face was giving nothing away.
“Trey is on his way.”
She set her laptop aside. “I’m sorry I was...difficult...earlier. I want you to know that I appreciate this. Appreciate everything you’re doing to find Charity,” she said.
“We’re going to find her,” he promised. He wasn’t sure what else he could tell her that might make it better.
By the time he got back to the living room, Trey was using his key to come in the door. “You do all fourteen floors?” Royce asked, ushering him into the suite.
“Yeah. Came in through a side entrance at ground level. Didn’t meet anybody.”
People didn’t do stairs in these buildings. Most of the guests probably hadn’t even noticed the signage pointing them out as an emergency exit.
Jules came out of the bedroom. “Hi, Trey. Sorry we keep interrupting your nap.”
“No problem. I hope you like red.”
“Huh?”
Trey pulled a dress out of the bag that he carried. It was red with silver sequins and skinny silver straps. It looked vaguely familiar.
“I got it from the boutique across the street from us.”
That’s where he’d seen it. There was a woman’s boutique directly across from Wingman Security. The mannequin in the window had worn this.
Next, he pulled a blond wig from the bag. “We had this.”
Royce recognized it and remembered when his partner Seth Pike had purchased it. He’d disguised himself as a woman sitting in a car, believing it made the neighbors in the gated community less nervous to see a woman in a car versus a man.
Trey handed both items to Jules. She made no comment.
“What do you got for me?” Royce asked.
“You’re just another slick cowboy with too much money and too little good judgment.” Trey proceeded to pull out dark blue jeans, a silky white shirt that snapped instead of buttoned, a belt with a buckle the size of his fist and a hat that had a band of silver sequins that came close to matching Jules’s dress. The last item was a pair of heavy-framed glasses.
